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Nvidia chief Jensen Huang has condemned US export controls designed to limit China’s access to artificial intelligence chips as “a failure” that spurred Chinese rivals to accelerate development of their own products.
In strongly worded criticisms of chip policies pursued by successive US administrations, the chief executive of the world’s leading AI chipmaker also criticised Washington’s decision to ban an Nvidia chip designed specifically for the Chinese market.
He told a news conference at the Computex tech show in Taipei on Wednesday that export controls had turbocharged Chinese rivals, led by tech giant Huawei, to build competitive AI hardware.
“Four years ago, Nvidia had 95 per cent market share in China. Today, it is only 50 per cent,” he said. “The rest is Chinese technology. They have a lot of local technology they would use if they didn’t have Nvidia.”
Huang added: “Chinese AI researchers will use their own chips. They will use the second best. Local companies are very determined and export controls gave them the spirit and government support accelerated their development. Our competition is intense in China.”
The Trump administration in April banned Nvidia from selling the H20, its watered-down AI chip tailored to align with former export controls, prompting a $5.5bn writedown by the company. Huang reiterated that Nvidia had no current plans to roll out another “Hopper” chip for the China market, saying the company had already “degraded the chip so severely”.
This is a developing story
